Dr Amy Fuller, ‘How One Woman Conquered Mexico’ – Historical Association talk
Dr Amy Fuller, ‘How One Woman Conquered Mexico: the legacy of Malintzin/Doña Marina, the conquistadors’ Indigenous interpreter’
Historical Association talk at the University of Lincoln’s Brayford Pool campus
Date: Monday 5 December 2022 at 6.15pm with time for questions afterwards
Please REGISTER your interest in the talk via this link: https://bit.ly/3iapmwP (details of the location will be circulated to those who have registered on Friday 2nd December.
ABSTRACT: Over the course of 300 years – from the Fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521, to Independence from Spain in 1821 – the figure of Cortés’ interpreter, Malintzin (or Doña Marina, as the Spaniards renamed her after her baptism) went from being a fairly insignificant character, barely mentioned in the narrative of the Conquest of Mexico, to a traitor, almost solely responsible for the downfall of the Aztec Empire. This talk will explore how the figure of Malintzin/Doña Marina has been manipulated over the centuries, in order to create ‘Histories’ that suited particular agendas and promoted different political causes, discussing the problematic nature of Malintzin’s ongoing reputation as a ‘Mexican Eve’.
SPEAKER: Amy Fuller is Senior Lecturer in the History of the Americas at Nottingham Trent University. She was awarded her PhD in Spanish Studies from the University of Manchester in 2010, and her first book, Between Two Worlds: The autos sacramentales of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was published by MHRA in 2015. Amy has written for both academic and public audiences; her research has been published by History Today; BBC History magazine and Mexicolore.co.uk. Amy has featured on BBC radio 4’s Front Row; The Forum on BBC World Service; the History Today podcast, and Suzannah Lipscomb’s Not Just the Tudors podcast.
Story submitted by Jamie Wood
jwood@lincoln.ac.uk